COMMON-SENSE BIOLOGY AS AN ART
As has been said, this Common-sense Biology partakes of the nature of an art. Now it is 51 characteristic of any art that, for its satisfactory exercise, it demands not only knowledge, but also intuition;—not only conscious volition, reflection, and endeavour, but also subconscious nervous and muscular activity, and, together with that, a certain emotional state—a trend, tendency, disposition of the whole being, which likewise is chiefly subconscious.
Without such a disposition to begin with you cannot have an artist. Neither will you get an artist, if, on the other hand, this disposition is never given an opportunity for displaying itself and developing its capacities. You cannot play an instrument properly if you have no music in you, and the music in you will never come forth if you have no instrument to play upon. When disposition and opportunity are happily met, and the true artist arises, it is in the subconscious that the chief riches, gained by her work and experience, are stored, and from the subconscious that she draws her skill; while in the subconscious, again, lie the mysterious sources of original inspiration. We all know well how over-consciousness spoils art, as it spoils most kinds of action. The happiest effects, the loveliest deeds spring, as it were, spontaneously.
What is true of such arts as music and poetry is at least equally true of the art of living. The rich and well-harmonised subconsciousness is the proximate source whence all that is strongest and most beautiful in human activity is derived. The domestic arts, conversation, power of rapid judgment 52 at a crisis, the care of the sick, the care of children, tactful daily dealing with one’s fellows, all these, and so much else, we recognise to be dependent for perfection upon practice; and that is only another way of saying that they depend on the efficiency and the character of the subconscious. But the character and efficiency of each person’s subconscious being depend in their turn—not solely, yet principally—first, upon the knowledge she has acquired, and secondly, upon the actions she has habitually performed. Action and being, as we all know full well, are for ever acting and reacting upon one another.
Action is a more potent influence upon the subconscious even than knowledge; and when to mere activity there is added emotion—such emotion, for instance, as pleasure or love, or solicitude, or desire for truth—we may feel assured we have brought into play the most powerful of all the forces which, in an ordinary way, go to vivify and to form human character.
The subconscious is even more important for women than for men, because women have more calls upon their emotions, and more need for intuition, and also more need for general resourcefulness and skill. It is because the Common-sense Biology whose claims we are urging involves so much activity, such care, quickness of observation, patience and ready wit, that it makes a better preparation for life than the more highly specialized work in the Biology of the laboratory alone could be.